Christmas Angel
by erinnn
Summary: Christmas is just around the corner and Lily can't help but feel a bit down. But when a mystery gift arrives, it seems like someone is looking out for her...


**A/N: Hello people! This is just a little holiday one-shot that's a bunch of gibberish with not too much fluff or anything. Enjoy and please review!**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter or anything related to that. Really. Hard to believe, isn't it?**

**Christmas Angel**

Seventeen-year-old Lily Evans crouched by her trunk, digging furiously for something. She pulled up t-shirts, jeans, socks and other articles of clothing before carelessly tossing them on the cold stone floor of her dormitory.

"I know it's here somewhere," she said to herself, blowing a lock of auburn hair out of her eyes. "I put it in here before I left, I know I did… Aha!"

She gently lifted a large box out of her trunk and sat down with a satisfied smile lighting her features up. She placed the box in her lap and gingerly pried the lid off. As the top layer of bubble wrap was pulled away, dainty Christmas ornaments were revealed. Each one shone and glittered in the dancing candlelight. Without another word, Lily gently took them out one by one and began arranging them on her mini Christmas tree.

The first thing she placed on the tree was a tiny golden bell. She smiled fondly as old Christmas memories began to haunt her. The bell had been a present from Caitlin, one of her oldest friends. Caitlin had moved away from Surrey when Lily was only seven years old. Heartbroken, the two girls exchanged parting gifts. Lily had given her a golden bracelet with a small red charm on it. Caitlin had given her what she deemed "the prettiest thing in my entire household". To Lily, it was the prettiest thing in the world.

It was then that she decided to collect Christmas tree ornaments. But as a child, she decided that her collection could not just be beautiful and festive. No, they had to have some sort of sentimental value. Every year, she added at least one new ornament to her collection. Soon, it grew to have a wide variety of ornaments: Antique ones, glass ones and porcelain ones in all sorts of different shapes, sizes and colours. It was not long before her parents gave her a small tree so that she could decorate it any way she pleased.

So every year, Lily took that tree with her wherever she went. It didn't feel like Christmas without it.

The second ornament she used was a small, emerald green glass ball. That specific ornament was given to her by her grandmother five years ago. She had said it matched the colour of her eyes and wasn't it convenient that her eyes were such a festive colour? Her grandmother had been so cheery and plump. Lily loved her to bits and she was floored at the amount of thought behind the gift.

The next ornament to find its way out of the box was a porcelain Santa Claus. It was small, but it was intricately designed. His small black eyes sparkled even in the dim candlelight. His cheeks were rosy and his expression was mirthful. It was given to her by her closest friend at Hogwarts, Samantha Montgomery.

An antique candy cane ornament was next – from her Aunt Matilda. Then came the mini partridge in a pear tree from her twin cousins Michael and Kimberly – they had only been two at the time. That was followed by a silver reindeer she herself had found in her attic. It had once belonged to her great aunt. A silvery icicle from a store was positioned on the tree after that. It was from her first trip to Hogsmeade. Then the white sparkly snowflake from her first boyfriend was placed. The next to be chosen was a fat snowman – the last nice Christmas gift she had received from her sister.

As Lily placed each one on her little tree, she laughed to herself and recalled all the happy memories of opening presents and eating huge dinners with her family and playing in the snow and singing Christmas carols helplessly out of tune with her dad. But when she reached the final ornament in the box, her smile faded. To anyone else, it simply looked like and old and slightly tarnished gold star. But to her, it meant the world.

She took the star out of the box and turned it over in her hands, her fingers running over every crevice. Her parents had given her the star last Christmas. The Evanses used the star ever since Lily could remember _anything_. It was like it had been a Christmas fixture, like eggnog or crackers. It had always been sitting on the top of their Christmas tree and Lily had always admired its luster and elegance.

The past few years had been riddled with pain and stained with countless tears. Her mum had been really ill last year and last August, she passed away. It had been the toughest time of Lily's life. She hadn't wanted to go back to school, but her dad assured her that he would be fine and that she needed to finish her education.

That winter, her father had sent her a holiday care package, complete with cookies, mistletoe, socks, a present and the star. Her mum, before passing on, had told her father to give her the star because she knew her daughter loved it. Lily marveled at the thoughtfulness of her mother. She could have asked her father to buy her a new one… but instead, she had chosen to give Lily one that had sentimental value and so many happy memories wrapped around it. It was, in essence, the last present her mother had ever given her.

Lily sniffled and took the star out of the box it was in. It was too heavy for her tree – she had tried to place it at the top last year and the tree tilted and had almost crashed on the floor – so she placed the tree on her nightstand and rested the star at the base of it.

Lily looked at her masterpiece. It really was quite cute. But as she was looking at it, Lily couldn't help but sigh. It was lacking something. She knew what was needed but try as she might, she couldn't find it. For the longest time, she had associated Christmas with angels. When she was younger, her mother told her wonderful, dreamy stories about angels singing to shepherds long ago on the first Christmas ever. And when she was at home before she went to bed, her mother came into her bedroom to tuck her in. She'd kiss her on the forehead and say, "Goodnight, angel". So to her, angels reminded her of her mother. To her, angels and Christmas went together like peanut butter and jelly. Since she began collecting ornaments, she searched for an angel but she had never been able to find one that fit her description of what it should look like.

Deciding that she couldn't do anything about it at that moment, Lily descended the stairs that led from her room to the Gryffindor common room. Samantha was sitting on a squishy red armchair, playing Exploding Snap with James Potter. Lily couldn't decide whether or not to roll her eyes at that. She had despised James since the dawn of time because of his stupidity and arrogance. But that year, she had gotten to know him a little better, owing to the fact that she was the Head Girl and he was Head Boy. She got to see the funny side of James, the smart side, the determined side… and it had been a nice, eye-opening experience.

Still. After hating him for so long, it was hard to become his friend so suddenly. Nice-James was still a very alien concept to Lily.

"Hey, Sam," she called out as she approached her friend.

"Bloody hell! I can't believe the ruddy cards blew up in _my face_ again!" she cried out in frustration, ignoring Lily's presence.

"That's just the way the cookie crumbles," replied James with a smirk on his face. He turned and faced Lily. "Isn't that right, Evans?"

Slightly taken aback by his question and not knowing how to answer it, Lily gave a half-hearted nod.

"So what have you been doing, all locked up in your dormitory?" he asked as he picked up the charred remains of his deck.

Lily began to get flustered. She noticed that it had been happening more and more frequently when she talked to James. The way he looked at her was so intense that it gave her an odd case of the shivers.

"Er, you know. I was just… decorating my tree," she stammered before almost instantly turning her attention back to her fuming friend. "Do you want to head down to the Great Hall and get some lunch? I'm starved."

"Sounds good to me," Samantha said. "Anything sounds better than getting slaughtered in Exploding Snap by James."

The bespectacled teen laughed.

"It's not my fault that I'm just _that much_ better than you." He winked at Lily, who smiled back.

"You wish," she muttered as she stood up. "Shall we go?" she said to Lily.

"Erm, yeah," she responded, still looking at James.

"Right then. See you later, Potter," Samantha said. "I'll beat you some other time."

"Bye." He was still looking straight at Lily.

"Bye," she said back. She tore her green eyes away from his hazel ones and turned around, following her friend out of the common room. But even as she walked away from him, she could feel his thoughtful gaze follow her. It was unnerving.

---

After lunch, Lily went back up to the dormitory to get her mittens and cloak. Over the course of the meal, Lily and Samantha decided to go outside and have a snowball fight with the other girls in their year. As Lily was rummaging through her trunk and the mass of her clothes on the floor, she happened to glance up at her little tree and noticed that something was amiss.

Her mouth dropped open and the forgot what she was doing and walked to the tree to get a closer look and to make sure that she wasn't hallucinating – and discovered that she wasn't. Sitting on top of her evergreen tree was a beautiful angel. It was tiny and looked so delicate. It was exactly what she was looking for. The angel's skin was pale and pearly, her cheeks were rosy and her long, curly hair was flaxen. The mouth was pink and curved into a benign smile. The fingers, though small, were long and tapered and the wings were the purest of white and looked soft and feathery. It was _perfect_.

On her nightstand, right next to the star, was a piece of parchment that hadn't been there before. Curiously, she picked it up.

_Dear Lily,_

_I wasn't sure how to give this to you and I wasn't sure if you'd reject it if I gave it to you face to face, so in order to save my ego and reputation, I decided just to sneak into your room and put it somewhere you'd see it. Although, in my defense, I didn't actually sneak into your dormitory. I got Remus' little sister to do it. I can't get up to your room because of the sneaky staircase that turns into a slide._

_ANYWAY. I'm rambling. So I'll stop. But I won't stop writing, because I haven't really gotten to the point of this letter yet. _

_So the point of this letter is to explain my gift, I suppose. I think it needs a bit of explaining, because it's certainly not something you'd expect to get from me. _

_Just in case you haven't found it by now, I've given you the angel that's sitting on your tree (or at least it should be if Remus' sister didn't mess up). I've heard you talk about your ornament collection before. So back when I asked you out every day (heh heh, remember that? I hope you don't – it was one of the more mortifying points of my existence) I bought this for you. I just never had the guts to give it to you because what can I say? I'm a huge pansy that way. But I decided to give it to you this year for two reasons: 1) we've become friendlier with each other and 2) this is probably the last Christmas I'll ever see you. So I figured hell, what do I have to lose?_

_And in any case, I think the angel kind of suits you. Not that you're an angel or anything because you're not. Er, that doesn't sound very nice. What I meant to say was… I'm going to screw this up terribly so I'm just going to shut up now. I just meant that you kind of look like an angel person. So I thought that giving you this would kind of work._

_I know you've had quite a tough year and I know that this dinky ornament really can't do all that much to cheer you up but I thought that maybe it could help. I'm not really sure how because it's just a dumb ornament and all, but I just thought it might. _

_I'm rambling again but I can't help it. _

_Actually, I've changed my mind. I can help it. I'm just going to stop there before you think I'm even more of a nutter than you probably already do. _

_Merry Christmas, Lily._

_Love,_

_James_

Lily laughed as she folded the letter up. She glanced at the angel again and thought about how sweet his gesture was. Even if he had just given her a gift with a note that read _From, James_ she would have been touched. But his letter was just so funny and cute and so irresistibly James that she felt something tug at her heartstrings.

All doubts that she had about James Potter melted away in that instant. From then on, she knew that he really was a nice guy with a huge heart.

He was very wrong about one thing in his insane letter: The dinky ornament _did _cheer her up. It – along with him – had just made her day… no, had just made her Christmas. Now all she had to do was find a way to thank him. Perhaps the use of a little mistletoe was needed…


End file.
